US Dollar hike: Strange logic by Finance Minister

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ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar said Thursday that a thorough and transparent investigation would be conducted into the dollar price hike matter, which he said was result of a miscommunication and misunderstanding among some individuals and institutions.

The Minister was talking to media persons after chairing a meeting of over two dozen heads of banks, Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and other senior officials of the Ministry of Finance to discuss thisunfortunate development.

Dar said that this was a unique incident or accident of its type in the country’s history. The minister said that after the appointment of governor SBP, likely by tomorrow, the transparent inquiry would be carried out by competent and honest man of integrity to fix responsibility in this issue of national importance.

He said that the inquiry might be completed in 10 days and action would be taken against the individual(s) responsible. All transactions conducted during this time would be assessedto determine that who were the losers and gainers.

He said that not any person including himself has any authority to take such important decision related to economy (in this case artificially adjust of the dollar’s value) as there was proper mechanism to take such decisions.

He deplored that even the Deputy SBP governor was not informed about this important decision by certain individuals. Dar said that there was no reason for this surprising and artificial hike as market was working in routine, the forex reserves stood at $21 billion and forex market was also stable.

He expressed the hope that market would soon stabilize itself and determine the value of currency adding that nobody could direct the market to overcome issue of under valuation.

Dar said that the market has made self-correction as depicted by the dollar exchange of Thursday morning. Earlier, the minister Wednesday had taken serious notice of the spike in the interbank rates of the US dollar versus the Pakistani Rupee and had expressed deep concern, indignation anddisappointment at the fact that the current political situation wasbeing exploited by certain individuals, banks and entities, resulting in the artificial hike.